Scappoose

Marshes and other freshwater wetlands provide critical habitat for a wide variety of waterfowl and other waterbirds. Most freshwater wetlands in Oregon are seasonal in nature, ranging from floodplain forests and sloughs to shallow ponds and wet prairies. Although these wetlands support a variety of breeding waterbirds, their most important function is the habitat they provide for migrating and wintering waterfowl and shorebirds. Key areas include:

• Lower Columbia River: floodplain wetlands support more than 100,000 wintering waterfowl.
• Willamette Valley: crucial winter habitat for a half-dozen subspecies of Canada geese, with numbers in recent years approaching 200,000 birds. This area also provides important winter habitat for killdeer, dunlin and other shorebirds.
• Coquille Valley: seasonally flooded pastures may hold up to 50,000 waterfowl in mid-winter, most of them dabbling ducks.

Present status: Most historic freshwater wetlands in western Oregon have been drained and converted to agricultural or urban uses. Remaining natural emergent marshes are found in floodplains along streams and rivers in the Willamette Valley and lower Columbia River. On the coast, emergent marshes are most common in the deflation plain of stabilized dune systems and along the shorelines of freshwater lakes. Joint venture partners have secured protection for a number of key wetland complexes and restored thousands of acres of seasonal marshes along the lower Columbia River and in the Willamette Valley.

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